Burnished Throne
by Kathey27
Summary: Because in the end, it was always going to be just them two. Immortality through the eyes of Ruby and Castiel. / Or, In the end they don't find God but they win anyways.


**A/N: This is, like basically everything I write, angst. Like really angst filled. To the brim. I actually feel really bad about it but I loved it too much to let it start to gather dust in my folder so tada! I hope you enjoy!**

**The songs to blame for this little thing are: "Broken" by Lifehouse, "Streetlights" by Kanye West and "Skin" by Zola Jesus.**

**Disclaimer: Trust me, if I owned anything…if I owned anything Dean and Ruby would have been allowed the chance to shine. And Bobby would be alive; obviously.**

**xxxxxx**

**burnished throne:**

In the end they don't find God but they win anyways.

In the end Lucifer gets locked into his cage and Michael returns to run Heaven and they give Adam yet again another funeral pyre and she clutches Dean's arm and caresses Sam's hand and hold's Bobby's gaze and feels Castiel's warmth radiating along her side.

In the end she feels the start of forever begin.

xxxxxx

They buy a house near Bobby and settle down.

Michael's swept most of everything under the rug for a while and it's over.

They can rest now.

She still makes Castiel search for any news of suspicious behavior going on because she's Ruby and breaking habits was never her strong suit.

xxxxxx

They get new jobs and new clothes and new lives and it starts to feel like things might be okay for a while.

xxxxxx

There are still those nights when Dean wakes up, shaking from Hell and those nights when Sam wakes up, screaming for Jess and those nights when Castiel wakes up, pleading for God.

She makes sure to keep her mouth shut, so when she wakes up, shrieking for help, there's nothing to hear.

xxxxxx

Time passes.

xxxxxx

They don't try for a baby.

"Ruby – "

"No Dean. No. A baby…my genes…do you remember Jesse? That's what it'll be like. I don't want that for my child, for them to look into a mirror and see hellfire burning in their eyes. No."

xxxxxx

There's no more running and no one's after them so Sam, while he no longer craves law school, craves _something_ so he heads for New York in hopes of finding that _something_.

xxxxxx

In the end Sam meets up with Sarah again while searching for that _something_.

Five months later they're engaged and expecting their first son.

xxxxxx

Sarah and Castiel bond over books.

Sarah and Bobby bond over their love for Tori Spelling.

Sarah and Ruby bond over their love for food and all things Winchester.

Sarah and Dean…he likes the girl he does, he once _told_ Sam to marry her, and she makes Sam happy. So, **so** happy but…but she isn't Jess.

xxxxxx

The day of the wedding comes.

Dean frowns, fidgeting with the collar of his stupid monkey suit, "Sam…you sure? She's…she's not…Jess."

Sam smiles sadly, fumbling with his tie in front of the mirror. "No, she isn't," He agrees. "She's…better. She knows. She understands."

Ruby fixes the tie for him with a quiet smile.

xxxxxx

Sam and Sarah get married in an open field and Dean's the best man and Ruby's the maid of honor and Castiel looks as happy for them as he can with his one expression and Bobby frowns down at the suit they'd forced him into and it all goes by perfectly perfect and in the end she might have shed a tear or two.

xxxxxx

Sam moves out and gets a house nearby and Castiel gets Sam's old room.

She stands by the doorway as the blue-eyed man packs away his things into his new bedroom.

"You like being human yet?" She asks, like every Sunday morning.

"…Ask me again in a few years." The ex-angel replies, like every Sunday morning.

xxxxxx

Sam's gone but he's not and every Thursday there's a barbecue at Bobby's and they're all there and it's always sunny and bright outside and there's laughter and smiles and warmth and everything they'd always hoped for.

xxxxxx

In the end Sarah gives birth to a beautiful Adam Robert Winchester on March 19th. Ruby holds her hand through the entire thing and wipes away the sweat from her friend's forehead afterwards.

The baby has Sam's eyes and smile and Sarah's hair and skin.

xxxxxx

Bobby looks down at his namesake and reassures him that he won't let him turn into an idjit like it's parents.

Castiel looks down at the newborn and marvels at how small and beautiful it looks.

Dean looks down at his nephew and promises to spoil it rotten and teach it good music.

Ruby looks down at the next Winchester and whispers that it'll never have to worry; she'll protect it and love it always.

xxxxxx

Time passes.

xxxxxx

She figures it out after the lines around Sam's eyes have gotten deeper and the corners of Sarah's mouth are darker and the roughness of Dean's hands seem to disappear over night while her skin remains as tight and pale as ever and Castiel stays as rough and pinched as always.

She clasps Dean's hand in hers one night and kisses it softly. "You're dying." She whispers.

The gleam in his eyes dims by that much. "Aren't we all sweetheart?"

No.

xxxxxx

Dean proposes after they both get a bad case of food poisoning and she's busy puking her guts out into their toilet.

He asks as he's holding her hair back and rubbing her back.

She whacks at his chest and continues to vomit.

He coughs through the pain and asks if that was her saying yes.

xxxxxx

Her and Dean are married in the summer and it's outside of Bobby's salvage yard.

Sam's the best man and Castiel's her man of honor (Dean teases him two weeks straight) and Sarah cries and Bobby catches the bouquet and grumbles and she eyes the empty spaces where all their lost friends should be, those who'd died for the war and those before and feels her chest just slightly cave in.

xxxxxx

They come back from their honeymoon in Kansas to see Castiel camping out in the living room with little Adam glued to his chest as he explained all the faults in the movie playing before them.

She glances at Linda Fiorentino and Silent Bob, sighs, curses Dean for ever bringing that movie into their house and steals the baby away.

xxxxxx

She holds their hands side by side that night and frowns at the differences.

xxxxxx

Dean turns thirty-eight and Sam turns thirty-four and Sarah turns thirty-two.

They look it too.

She stays twenty-three and gorgeous. Castiel stays thirty-three and handsome.

She kisses Dean's mouth and lines and lips and brow and holds his waist at night.

xxxxxx

Time passes.

xxxxxx

In the end Bobby goes first.

Dean's forty and Sam's thirty-six and Sarah's thirty-four and Bobby's God only knows how old and he goes first.

The doctors say it'd been a clot, something in his leg or whatever; she hadn't really been listening. She'd been too busy clutching a trembling Dean and holding a sobbing Sam and reassuring a hysterical toddler and hushing a babbling Sarah and keeping the gaze of a broken ex-angel.

xxxxxx

After they finish burning Bobby is when she breaks.

She races into the house pulling and tugging at her black turtleneck and when Castiel finds her she's gasping and pleading for air.

In the end he has to rip the shirt off of her and as he holds her half naked form close, hushing and soothing her through the tremors, she feels the tears come and the pain begin.

xxxxxx

They sell their house and move into Bobby's. They air it out a bit and clean up some of the books but they keep all the sigils and wards and furniture and leave Bobby's bedroom untouched because certain things are sacred.

xxxxxx

They take the upstairs bedroom and Castiel gets the one down the hall.

xxxxxx

Thursdays are spent the same as always except someone always accidently puts out an extra plate and they're left gazing at it in pain for the rest of the afternoon.

xxxxxx

"You're dying." She whispers three months after Bobby's gone.

The gleam in his eyes seems to shine for a few seconds before fading down. "Yes."

"And I'm not."

"…No."

xxxxxx

She asks Castiel.

"Cas – "

"It was me…when I healed you…when I came back…I only had so much Grace left. Bobby was easy, almost no energy but you…your soul, what had remained of it was in Purgatory. I had to reach in and hold it close and my Grace split. Enough to change you and I. Enough to damn us."

She cries as he holds her.

xxxxxx

She doesn't tell Dean because he doesn't need to know and if he notices that Castiel isn't aging along with her while he does with every passing second, he doesn't say a word.

xxxxxx

Time passes.

xxxxxx

Dean starts to lose weight and his stomach starts to hurt and he isn't able to eat the way he used to so he goes to the doctor.

xxxxxx

Dean comes home one day and sits her down.

"It's my liver…Ruby…sweetheart…the doctor's said to get – "

She runs out of the room and Castiel holds her hair back as she throws up.

xxxxxx

"Ruby – " Castiel tries.

"He's a drunk. A stupid, stupid drunk and I knew this was a possibility because dear God _fucking no one_ drinks the way that man does but…but Cas, it's not _fair_."

xxxxxx

In the end the cancer spreads fast. It's aggressive and brutal and it spreads fast.

Two months in Dean can't get out of bed and Sam and Sarah and little Adam have moved in.

Four months in she spends the days in bed with her husband because she fears the second she looks away, she'll gaze back and he'll be cold.

Five months in she wakes up to a cold body.

xxxxxx

In the end they can't get her out of bed.

Sam tries. (He cries and pleads and resorts to calling her selfish and stupid and ungrateful).

Sarah tries. (She babbles and yells and resorts to storming out in tears).

Little Adam tries. (He tugs on her sheets and asks where Uncle Dean is and why she looks so sad).

Castiel comes in and gets into bed with her. The ex-angel grips her hands tight and gazes into her black eyes sadly.

"He loved you."

"…Not enough to fight. Not enough to stay."

He doesn't disagree.

She gets out of bed.

xxxxxx

Dean's burned besides where Bobby had been.

xxxxxx

The day after Dean's funeral she lies down next to his ashes and refuses to leave. When the ex-angel approaches to take her away, they both end up lying there together.

Sam finds them the next morning with tear streaked faces and dirty hair.

xxxxxx

Time passes.

xxxxxx

Sam and Sarah and little Adam return home and then it's just her and Castiel and they spend their days crying and watching Dr. Sexy MD reruns and Dogma and it's only six months after his death that they manage to get each other out of the house.

xxxxxx

She smashes all the mirrors in the house when all she can see gazing back at her is a young, youthful face with eyes as black as night.

Castiel helps her throw out the pieces.

xxxxxx

She can't sleep in their bed and she can't sleep in Bobby's bed because although the ashes are gone she still fears ghosts so she pushes Castiel aside and slips into bed with him the nights the Impala isn't cutting it.

xxxxxx

Sam turns forty-three and Sarah turns forty-one and little Adam becomes eight.

She stays bright and pure faced and Castiel stays clean and smooth faced.

xxxxxx

Sam caresses back her hair with a tired and sad smile. "He loved you so much."

"You're going to leave me too." Is all she can whisper back.

He frowns but doesn't deny it.

xxxxxx

In the end the phone call comes on November 1st and it's four in the morning and it's cold out and…_and…is this what it feels like to die_?

xxxxxx

Her and Castiel go into the station and identify all three bodies from the mangled mess the car collision had turned them into and when they get to go back home she collapses in the foyer and doesn't (_can't_) get back up.

xxxxxx

The night of their funerals she falls asleep in his arms and they both cry for the last of the Winchesters.

xxxxxx

"Castiel, it _hurts._" She whispers through the burning tears.

Castiel looks at her with equally burning eyes and nods. "I know."

xxxxxx

Time passes. Slowly.

xxxxxx

Her eyes stay their true color.

xxxxxx

She wakes up one night to find Castiel in bed besides her, gazing into her black eyes with startling electric blue ones.

"You can stop now. It's just me." The ex-angel whispers, running his fingertips along the corners of her eyes slowly.

Onyx eyes continue to look into his.

"That's why I don't." She replies.

He nods. He gets it.

xxxxxx

In the end it all starts to spiral down and most nights Castiel has to drag her out of bars and away from strange men – and women – and take her home.

He peels her clothes away and gazes into her onyx eyes as he pushes her into the shower and tucks her into bed and watches as she sobs and shrieks her way to sedation.

xxxxxx

Since she can't Castiel does.

He settles Sam and Sarah's affairs and sells the house and when he comes back home to her to inform her that they'd left all their money and possessions to them she only nods numbly.

xxxxxx

"What... what are you hoping to gain from all of this? What are you looking for?" Castiel asks after he's pulled her back home from yet another flashy bar with loud music and cheap booze.

"…An ending…or a beginning…I'm still trying to figure that part out." She replies with tired, sad black eyes before drifting off into sleep.

xxxxxx

In the end Castiel allows her to be broken and helps her through the nightmares and cradles her head against his chest and takes care of her as best he can because he promised.

xxxxxx

_"Cas…Cas, man come over here. Cancer's not contagious you idiot. Now look, I know you and Ruby are all besties for life and all that shit, don't deny it, I've caught you guys gossiping, so I need you to promise me somethin'. You've got to take care of her. I mean it and – hey! Look at me. I mean it; you've got to take care of her after I'm gone. I know her, you know her. She'll be angry. Angry at me and you and Sam and Sarah and everyone. I need you to be patient and understand and let her burn herself out. I need you to be there when she comes down from all that angry. I need to know she'll be okay when I'm gone. Promise me, Cas. Promise me."_

xxxxxx

Castiel, like he promised, is there when Ruby stops being angry.

It's a late day in January and she's clutching Dean's silver ring in her hands, the only thing she can bare to look at, and when he enters the room she looks up at him with **blue** eyes and a wobbling smile.

"Your eyes…" He breathes, falling down to his knees before her. He holds her face in his hands and sighs in relief. "You're back."

She leans into his touch and nods, "I'm back."

xxxxxx

She rolls over and wipes away at the tears leaking out of his eyes. "I never asked you." She whispers, as if it was some dirty little secret. Maybe it is.

The ex-angel could only lean into her hands.

"You loved them too." She breathes, blue eyes wide and fearful.

The ex-angel lets out a sigh and falls asleep in her arms.

xxxxxx

In the end the bars stop and the random men and women stop and the late night binge drinking games stop and the shrieks of pain stop.

In the end, they start to heal together.

xxxxxx

They love the salvage yard. They do. It's all that's left but the years have passed and people are talking and the fact that they look the same as they had in 2010 seems to bother some folks.

They love the salvage yard so they keep it and pack their bags and clothes and take only what matters (John's journal and their family pictures and Dean's ring and Sam's laptop and Bobby's favorite hat and Sarah's jewelry box and little Adam's favorite toy soldier) and get into the Impala and high tail it out of Dakota.

xxxxxx

They make a list.

(…Russia, Monte Carlo, Italy, California, Rio de Janeiro, Spain, Japan, London, Jerusalem, Amsterdam, Sydney…)

They add to it every day and make sure to take pictures and if they get a little too drunk and party a bit too hard, well, she was in Hell for centuries and he'd been a virgin for over two millennium and all their family was dead and gone so they figured they deserved a little something for themselves.

xxxxxx

She manages to get Castiel hocked up with a nice brunette named Jeni and he comes back to her at 5 in the afternoon with a blissful look on his face.

She grins and pulls him into bed and makes him recount every detail for her.

xxxxxx

They're in Spain, drinking in the sea air and pressing themselves against shore rocks when it hits her.

She knows how to find her ending.

xxxxxx

"Castiel…let's find God."

xxxxxx

They extend their list.

xxxxxx

Time passes.

xxxxxx

In the end they're in Jerusalem when they run into the angel.

It has a male vessel with dirty blonde hair and sparkling grey eyes and it gazes at Castiel with warmth and love and she stands to the side as they embrace.

"Cassie."

"…Balthazar."

xxxxxx

She buys Balthazar a drink and listens to the angel tell her stories of Cas as a mini-angel and she grins and laughs and relishes in being around someone who knows their real names.

xxxxxx

Balthazar leaves them three weeks later with a "good luck" and a "try New Mexico" and a "see you soon".

xxxxxx

The next time they see Balthazar he comes to them bleeding and coughing and sporting a gaping, white hole in his chest.

The angel with the grey eyes dies in Castiel's arms with his head in her lap.

She's too numb to cry.

xxxxxx

Castiel locks himself in the Impala for three hours and when he finally opens the door for her she comes in to find him gazing silently at the box of cassette tapes underneath the passenger seat.

She sighs, stuffs one of the tapes into the too old to work properly player and wraps her arms tight around the ex-angel.

"He loved you." She offers and the familiar words taste bitter and bloody in her own mouth.

"…He didn't know the feeling."

She tightens her grip.

xxxxxx

April 31st rolls around and it's practically become a tradition so when Ruby goes missing and he has no idea where to look, he actually does so he makes his way on over to Kansas and finds her standing across the street from where the house she never got to know should be.

"They tore it down. About a year ago, I think."

"…"

"It was a beautiful house."

"…Ruby," he says cautiously because she's always been a special case. "Let's go home."

She turns to him with restored black eyes. "What home?"

xxxxxx

In the end he puts her to bed like he used to when she was still broken and when she catches his hand in hers and refuses to let go he doesn't say anything because it's the anniversary of her husband's death after all so...enough said.

xxxxxx

They go through the list quickly and she helps him meet girls and despite the fact that he's still awkward and scruffy and stiff he's also warm and soft and desperate for love.

xxxxxx

She sighs, gazing up at the stars of Canberra and looks over at her ex-angel.

"Adam would have been a teenager around now."

He looks back at her with tired eyes and nods. "He would have been beautiful."

"…He should have lived. He should have outlived us." She looks away.

Castiel takes this as a twisted form of _this is your fault _and_ you damned us _and_ what's the point of forever if those you love aren't around for it_.

He swallows and looks away too.

xxxxxx

Time passes.

xxxxxx

She turns over in bed and sighs. "I don't blame you."

"Liar."

"…I know. But I love you so it's okay."

xxxxxx

They somehow end up going to Chuck and the prophet has a few grey hairs and looks tired but unsurprised to see them.

"I was wondering when you'd show up." He holds the door open wider for them.

xxxxxx

Chucks tells them the visions are fainter and farer in between since Michael's reign began but either way he can't help them because when God wants to stay lost, he stays lost.

She asks why they had to die.

He smiles sadly and shrugs.

Cas has to pull her out when she lunges for the drunk.

xxxxxx

In the end they stop by Dakota for a few days and when she passes by an old picture they'd left behind somehow she crawls onto his lap and sighs, pressing her nose into his neck.

"Dean wanted kids."

The ex-angel wraps his arm around her at this.

"I told him no."

He tightens his grip.

xxxxxx

She lies down on her old bed and hugs Dean's pillow tight and smiles sadly because she can't smell him anymore.

Cas comes in and he glances at her ring finger and although they hadn't talked about it she knows that he wonders why she keeps it on.

"He was my forever."

The ex-angel nods simply.

xxxxxx

Time passes.

xxxxxx

They leave Dakota with a newly extended list and new pictures and they head to Germany next.

xxxxxx

They're in Ahlen and it's a rainy day and Castiel is out getting food and she's lying in bed when she glances over at the calendar hanging on the wall and feels her lips wobble and her shell crack slightly because it's been years since she's felt his hands on her skin or has tasted his breath and she is unnatural and sick and doesn't deserve eternity.

He comes back to find her sharping blades and cleaning out guns and when he asks if she's okay, she tells him to fuck off because he damned her.

xxxxxx

"I was going to do it." She whispers no more than a week into her silent treatment and the room is dark and the air is thick and is that her voice that keeps cracking?

"…Do what?" He asks because if he doesn't she'll probably go back into silent mode for the duration of their stay.

"Become human. I wanted…I wanted to do it right with him. I wanted to give him a family without any Hell in my veins and I wanted to grow old with him properly. I wanted to die with him. I wanted a lifetime."

When he can't think of anything to say he says the next best thing: "Now you have forever."

"…Not with him."

He goes to sleep.

xxxxxx

She tests the boundaries of her damnation and finds out she can't die.

At all.

She tries to stab herself but that only ends with a sore chest and a ruined blade and she tries to get hit by a car but that only ends with a broken windshield and a bruised back and a terrified teen driver and she tries to drown but that only ends with a lot of choking and a raw throat.

She shoots Castiel in the chest and when he doesn't even flinch she wonders when he had time to be suicidal.

xxxxxx

It hasn't even been twenty full years since she was brought back but she's already starting to go insane and it isn't long before the remaining people they'd used to know are dying and then there is no one left anymore and it's just them two now and that insane is mutating towards angry. Again.

xxxxxx

She takes out said angry on him.

xxxxxx

In the end she leaves him to go burn Rufus' body and then leaves him again to go oversee Sheriff Mills' funeral and each time he lets her go without a fight because the silence she creates when she's near is deafening.

xxxxxx

She keeps being angry and she starts to drink more and although times have changed some, they haven't changed that much so in true female fashion, she gets herself a new boyfriend.

xxxxxx

He catches her hand one night before she's about to leave with Mason or Craig or whatever his name is.

"You can't keep doing this." He pleads, voice low and calm.

She sighs, "Doing what?"

"…You know we can't stay."

"I know."

"…He has hazel eyes."

"…I know."

She pulls away and shuts the door behind her.

xxxxxx

In the end Mason or Craig or whoever ends up getting into a motorcycle accident three weeks in and he's the first person she calls.

He comes to get her at the hospital and she's wet and has a suit jacket on her shoulders and has no shoes on but what gets him to kneel down before her is the fear in her eyes.

"Castiel."

"…Ruby."

She sighs at this and when he sits down besides her, she leans into his side and rests her head on his shoulder.

"They said it was fast." She offers first. He covers her hand with his.

"I liked him." She adds. He tightens his grip some.

xxxxxx

The angry starts to slip away and tired starts to take its place.

"Ruby – "

"I don't want to find God anymore. What the hell has he ever done for me?" She snarls because it's the early 2030s and she still looks twenty-three and she deserves to be angry.

"This isn't – "

"Why aren't you mad?" She interrupts, rolling over in the bed and facing the ex-angel. "How are you so okay with eternity?"

"…I'm over two millennium old. That was before I met you. I've learned to adapt." He whispers.

The angry finishes leaving as slow tears began to fill her eyes. "I miss them too."

He pulls her close.

xxxxxx

"You like being human yet?" She asks one uneventful Sunday morning.

It takes him a while to remember how to answer because it's always been their private little joke but it's been a long while since she's asked. "…Ask me again in a few years." He replies, just like he used to.

xxxxxx

Time passes.

xxxxxx

"Hey Cas?"

"…Yeah?"

"Let's go to New Mexico."

xxxxxx

She leans over the Impala's backseat and drops the amulet into his lap one afternoon.

"I couldn't leave it there." She says in lieu of an explanation.

The ex-angel puts it on wordlessly.

xxxxxx

It's a month into their stay in New Mexico and she's gotten tanner and he's managed to land two girls and it's all going pretty slow when his neck starts to burn.

xxxxxx

They find God in a little villa outside of Santa Fe and she hugs him because it's finally over and even if they are the only ones left it's _something_.

She's found her ending.

xxxxxx

Ruby decides she likes God when the big man agrees to a dart contest and she takes the time then to study his vessel.

It's a thirty-year old man with warm brown eyes and a soft smile and there's a sense of peace washing off of him in waves and she starts to wonder why she ever doubted.

"Why me?" She asks after she's lost and Castiel won't stop staring at his Father in awe.

"Why not you?" There's a mischievous look in God's eyes that she doesn't appreciate.

xxxxxx

God says it's time to go back and although Michael has been doing a good job with things, he's been gone long enough.

Castiel stands before his Father and basks in the love seeping from God's voice as he commends the ex-angel for not giving up.

Ruby stands before God and asks why she had to lose everything and the only answer she gets is a small sigh and a little smile.

xxxxxx

Before they leave Santa Fe for good she suggests celebrating so they go out and get drunk and dance and laugh and wind up tumbling over each other in bed at four in the morning.

She wakes up to her best friend naked besides her and instead of running like she might have a few years ago she hooks her pinky with his and takes a deep breath in.

She's already found her ending.

It's time to find her beginning.

"Where do you want to go next?"


End file.
